NEW:Update 2000

This year the National Educator's Workshop (NEW:Update 2000) was held in Kettering, Ohio from October 29-November 1, 2000. This workshop gives instructors a chance to share tips, tricks and experiments used in the materials science laboratory courses being taught at universities, community colleges and technical schools and even high schools across north America. The theme was Automotive Materials into the Future. It was organized by Jim Jacobs at Norfolk State University and was sponsored by the Department of Energy, The National Composites Center, NASA, Norfolk State University, NIST, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Air Force Research Laboratory, US Automotive Materials Partnership, Center for Lightweight Materials and Processing, ASM International Foundation, University of Dayton and the Gateway Engineering Coalition.

The Bi/Sn Equilibrium Phase DiagramBy: Mike Meier
This paper describes how this popular equilibrium phase diagram experiment is done at U. C. Davis. At last year's meeting someone showed their version, so it seemed like a good idea to let others see our approach. Our approach asks the students to take responsibility for all aspects of the experiment. They weight and mix their own samples, melt them and record the cooling curves, analyze the data and compile the results. Ours is also a group experiment which includes many other valuable lessons. The paper described our procedure and included sample results. It also included a full listing of supplies, costs and vendors in case someone wanted to adopt this experiment at their school.

Click here to view the paper or right-click and "Save As" to download it.

Students weight and melt their own samples. It costs a bit more to do it this way, but it makes for a more active lab session with plenty of opportunities to make mistakes.

Custom DOS-based software was used for the data collection. The cooling curve shown here was generated in demo-mode. Demo-mode allows the student to try out the software before their sample is ready.

The Black Box ExperimentBy: Mike Meier
The paper described my adaptation of an experiment that is done at a number of schools across the country. Several years ago a graduate student told me about it and I eventually started using it in outreach and freshman-level courses to introduce the essential nature of science. This short paper described several essential features of science and then posed the problem that students had to solve, find out what is inside the black box, using any tools or instruments available in the laboratory, but without opening the box. This experiment teaches that science is fun, challenging, and that in the end it is a debate, not merely experiments and data.

Click here to view the paper or right-click and "Save As" to download it.

The Bragg Bubble-Raft MovieBy: Mike Meier
The paper provided an excuse to show the film that Foy and Bragg made back in 1954. The year before I had asked around and it seemed that few people had seen this film. This film is very effective in illustrating how dislocations behave. It shows dislocation-dislocation and dislocation-vacancy interactions, grain boundary migration and sliding, low-angle boundaries, and other dislocation processes. This short paper simply summarized the film.

Click here to view the paper or right-click and "Save As" to download it.

A frame from the video where Foy and Bragg illustrate
the concept of the Burger's circuit.

Another frame from the movie where dislocation
interactions are illustrated.

Acknowledgements
The authors would like to acknowledge Teaching Resources Center and the Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science at U.C. Davis for their support for attending the conference.